One Side Of The Coin
by kittyfantastico
Summary: CM JJ Challenge. Companion to Through The Looking Glass. A day in the life of Sydney Bristow. Please R/R!


Companion to 'Through The Looking Glass'.  This one contains 4 of the requirements: a triple agent, the destruction of a well-known monument (I hope Tower Bridge is well-known enough), handcuffs and a new gadget.

Set sometime in early S2.  Before Phase One, anyway.

Title: One Side Of The Coin

Author: Kittyfantastico

Rating: PG, just in case

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The choices we make have an impact on our lives, but some things are just meant to be.

Sydney frowned at her reflection in the long mirror that hung on her bedroom wall.  She fiddled with her hair a little, and smoothed her already unwrinkled skirt.  Should she tie her hair back?  It probably looked more business-like the way it was.  What did it matter, anyway?  At this particular moment in time she didn't really care if she screwed up her mission.  It was only SD-6.  Only SD-6.  SD-6.  She deleted the words from her sentence until she was left with the one that caused her stomach to churn, and her mind to be filled with a passionate loathing.  She turned her attention to the mirror and the woman staring back at her.  Her frown deepened when she saw herself and she became the object of her own loathing.  She considered herself basically a good person.  She was working for the CIA, and serving her country.  It was true, wasn't it?  So why was she continuously jumping through hoops to please Arvin Sloane; why did she always feel as if she was helping SD-6 rather than hindering them?  She scowled darkly at the woman on the other side of the mirror, and the woman scowled back at her.  She hated her reflection, and by the looks of things, her reflection hated her.  She relaxed her face, and her reflection copied her, keeping perfect time with her.  Perfect time, always in perfect time.  She glowered again, trying to catch her reflection out.  She wasn't quick enough. 

Suddenly, she found herself playing a game she had played when she was a young child.  She used to spend hours playing in front of the long mirror in her parents' bedroom, dancing and twirling, jumping up and down, making lightening-fast movements in an attempt to move faster than her reflection.  She had never succeeded, but every time she tried she had felt a tiny twinge at the back of her mind.  Something telling her that today would be the day.  Today she would raise her arm to the ceiling and her reflection would be slow to follow.  Of course, it had never happened – her reflection had always been just as good at the game as she was.  But the hope that it would happen was what had kept her trying.  

Now a grown woman of twenty-seven, Sydney felt silly twirling around and around in her bedroom.  She focused her anger into her movement, making her actions sharp and livid.  Always keeping one eye on the mirror, she could not help noticing that, though her movements were mapped exactly by her reflection, they took on a softer look and there was not a hint of anger in them.  Angrily, she spun around so that she was facing the mirror once again.  She glared crossly at the woman on the other side, and the woman glared back.  But there was a certain light in the other woman's eyes that betrayed her happiness.

"I'm not happy, I'm angry!" declared Sydney, and Sydney-in-the-mirror declared it along with her, though her voice was not heard.  Sydney could almost hear it though, and she knew that if she could it would not be a hateful voice.  Sydney-in-the-mirror looked as though she could never hate anyone – as if her life was much too perfect to be tarnished by such feelings of betrayal, and hurt, and rage.  Her eyes sparkled, not with the flashing anger that Sydney's did, but rather with joy, and even though she looked furious, as Sydney herself did, she had an air of bubbling enjoyment about her that said otherwise.

Sighing heavily, Sydney turned away from the mirror and went to pick up her suitcase.  Another mission.  Mission after mission after mission.  Where was it this time?  She didn't care.  She glanced at her plane ticket.  London.  That wasn't so bad.  At least it was far away.  She paused momentarily as she passed the mirror and looked sadly at the woman who looked back at her.  What was that in her reflection's look?  Pity?  Sydney shook her head.  She had never indulged in self-pity and wasn't about to start now.  She then realized that she hadn't been feeling sorry for herself, she had just been angry with herself and everyone around her.  So why did she _look_ as if she felt sorry for herself?  Perhaps it was just the other Sydney, the Sydney on the other side of the mirror, the Sydney with the perfect life, who pitied her.

*          *          *

Dragging her bag out of the overhead compartment, Sydney made her way off the plane into the velvety darkness that awaited her.  It had been pouring with rain in L.A. before she left; everything in sight drenched and dripping with water.  But here in London the air was crisp and cool, drenched not in water but in the light from the moon.  After mumbling a yes-thanks-I-had-a-lovely-flight to the flight attendant, Sydney left the plane and wandered through the airport, slowly ambling her way towards the car that was waiting to pick her up outside.

When she reached her destination, a hotel that was hosting a business conference that she was supposedly attending, she was shown to a room and told to meet in the conference room in an hour.  As she signed in at the main desk she glanced swiftly down the list of names, checking for Dixon's alias.  There it was, right at the top.  "Trust Dixon to be exactly on time," she thought with a wry smile.

The conference room was large and airy, and Sydney felt confident when she entered it.  Throngs of people were gathered in groups, chatting incessantly about one thing or another – it would be easy to remain unnoticed here.  She spotted Dixon across the room, engaged in a lively conversation with a pretty, Japanese-looking woman, and she surreptitiously caught his eye.  He held her gaze for a moment, to acknowledge that he had seen her, and then asked the Japanese woman a question.  Sydney kept to the edges of the room, not eager to talk to anyone or make her presence felt.  They were here to steal a Rambaldi artefact, housed at the hotel, and Sydney did not want to get any more involved in her role than she had to.

Later in the evening, Sydney excused herself from the conference and left the room.  She avoided eye contact with Dixon, so that suspicion was not aroused, but made sure that he knew she'd left.  She switched on her comm link as she ran down the corridor, searching for the room she needed.  Dixon listened to her, and coughed as answers when she asked a question.  Eventually, she came across the door with the number 47 printed on it.  This was it.  Her hand on the handle, Sydney was about to push the door open, when she heard a noise behind it.  Someone was in there already.  Was it a guard?  There was another noise – a voice.  Two voices!  And another one.  There was some sort of a fight going on.  Sydney heard a dull crash, and then a heavy thud as someone fell to the floor followed by the sounds of a woman screaming. Then there was a gunshot and another thud.  Two down. . . that left one, which meant. . . 

Sydney retreated back behind a filing cabinet, which conveniently stood just down the hall from the door.  It was a tight squeeze, even for someone as slim as she was, and she had to suck in her breath to fit there.  She got there just in time, for almost simultaneously, the door of room 47 opened and someone stepped out.  The someone walked right past the filing cabinet and Sydney saw a woman, an inch or two shorter than herself, with long blonde hair, which swung down to her hips.  In her hand she held the Rambaldi artefact.

As soon as the woman turned the corner, Sydney struggled out from behind the filing cabinet and ran into room 47.  On the floor lay two men, one, obviously a guard, had been shot and the other lay unconscious.  He was dressed for a mission, by the looks of things, and Sydney surmised that he was the woman's partner.  It would make sense – she had heard screams after this man had been knocked out.  She quickly relayed what had happened to Dixon and he promptly left the conference, making hurried excuses about needing to make a phone call.  He had just closed the door of the conference room behind him when Sydney informed him that Unconscious Guy's, as she was calling him, phone was ringing.

"Do you think it's her?" she asked in hushed tones, worried that the shrill ringing sound might wake him.

"I'd say so," Dixon replied.  "Answer it.  If it's her, I can trace the call and we'll find out where she is.  Hey, you can use Barbie's Dream Comb," he joked.  This was an invention of Marshall's.  He had created it a few months ago, but Sydney had never had to use it.  It was a tracking device, disguised as a pink, sparkly comb and when they had first been shown it Dixon had promptly nicknamed it Barbie's Dream Comb.

Sydney crossed the room to Unconscious Guy and picked up his phone.  She inserted the two end prongs of the comb into the bottom of the phone and snapped the rest of the comb back, activating the tracking device.

"I can't believe I'm using this thing," she murmured, with a smile.

"Okay, I've got it working," Dixon confirmed.  "Now answer the call," Sydney did so.

"What the hell took you so long?" came the explosive _female_ voice on the other end.

"This is great, Syd.  I'm getting a signal," Sydney was silent while two people talked to her simultaneously.

"Hello?" demanded the woman on the phone.  "Get the hell up out of that room and meet me at the extraction point!  I've got the artefact," she clearly had no doubt that she was speaking to her partner.

"Just a few more seconds, Sydney.  I've nearly got the location,"

"What is your problem?  Say something!" The woman was practically screaming into the phone.  "You know what?  I'm hanging up.  Just meet me there okay?"  Sydney panicked; she couldn't let the woman cut off before Dixon got her location.

"Who are you?" she blurted out.  There was a stunned silence on the other end.

"I've got it!" Dixon exclaimed, just as the woman realized her mistake and ended the conversation.

"Where?" Sydney asked breathlessly.

"Tower Bridge,"

*          *          *

As she neared the bridge, Sydney slowed her pace and stealthily crept along in the dark.  The woman was standing on the bridge, just a little way out above the river.  The air was filled with a deathly silence; there was no traffic at this time of night and the only sound was the gentle lapping of the river against its banks, and the shrill whistling of the wind in the trees.  The woman leaned against the railings of the bridge and tapped her foot impatiently on the ground.

"Hands behind your head!" Sydney ordered coming up behind her and aiming her gun at the woman.  The blonde complied with her request, turning slowly to face Sydney as she did so.

"Who are you?" demanded Sydney.

"Sophia Meredith," she smirked, and though a casual observer would at once have declared that Sydney had all the power in the situation, Sophia had a cool confidence about her which said different and made Sydney feel uneasy.

"Who do you work for?" Sydney asked, readjusting her grip on her weapon slightly.  Sophia took a step closer to Sydney.

"Who do you think I work for?" she replied, closing the gap between the two women until they were mere centimetres apart.  Without giving Sydney time to reply, she flicked a hand out from behind her head, knocking the gun out of Sydney's hand and twisting Sydney's arm behind her back at the same time.  She pulled hard on Sydney's arm, tightening her grip until the bone almost cracked and Sydney cried out in pain.  Picking the gun up from where it had landed by her feet, Sophia struck Sydney across the head with it, leaving her unconscious.

*          *          *          

When Sydney came to she was handcuffed to the bridge and Sophia was busy rigging explosives a few metres away from her, in the centre of the bridge.  She shook her head, but the blinding pain did not subside.  She tried to squeeze her hand out of the handcuffs but it was impossible and the harsh metal hurt her wrist.

"Oh good, you're awake," Sophia said cheerfully when she came back over.  "I was worried I'd hit you too hard," she grinned wickedly at Sydney before continuing.  "I wouldn't want you to miss the big finish, now would I?  Sorry you have to go out like this, but I just can't risk you telling anyone about me," she finished, sounding anything but sorry.

"I recognise you," Sydney said slowly, trying to focus on Sophia rather than the feeling of having her head bashed against a wall several times.  "I've seen you before. . ."

"I'm sure you have," Sophia said, hands on hips, staring down at her prisoner.  "I used to work with Anna Espinosa.  You remember her, don't you?" she grinned again.  "Of course you do.  Well, she's dead now."

"She is?" Sydney looked up sharply.

"She had the same fate as you," said Sophia, smiling sweetly.  "Well, she was in a church in Spain but, y'know, same principals."

Sydney shook her head.  She didn't understand why Sophia had killed Anna if they were working together but that wasn't the only thing bothering her.

"So you're K-Directorate?  But that's not where I've seen you. . . it was somewhere else."  

Sophia shrugged. "SD-6 maybe?  I work there too."

Sydney nodded, open-mouthed.  That was right.  She had seen Sophia two weeks ago talking to Sloane.

"You're a double agent?" she asked, wondering why she had never met Sophia before.

"Triple agent," corrected Sophia.  "I work for Irina Derevko's organisation too.  Or I did until she went and handed herself over to CIA.  What was that all about?  Anyway, we're still working on her 'projects' even if she's too busy playing Mommy to her soon-to-be-dead daughter to care."

"Why do you work for so many different people?" Sydney wondered aloud.

"I don't work for people.  I work for me." Sophia told her.

"But how – I mean. . . there must be one of them who you're really working for," 

"Nope," she shrugged dramatically and gave Sydney a mock pitying look.  "The way I see it, it's everyone for themselves.  You work for the CIA like a good little girl – always doing things for them, always thinking of other people.  I work for my own happiness," she looked at Sydney for a moment, considering whether or not to continue.  "At the moment I'm genuinely working for SD-6.  Sloane's a repulsive man, but he pays a lot more than anyone else right now."

"You're doing it for money?" Sydney asked, aghast.  

"Sure.  I do what Sloane wants, but I've got the upper hand.  He pays me whatever I want and he always will. . . well, until I get a better offer from someone else.  And you know why?  Because I'm the best at my job.  I'm better than you," she looked pointedly at Sydney's wrist, held firmly to the side of the bridge.  "and that's because I work for myself.  You know, if you had looked out for number one and not spent so much time worrying about the good of your country, or the well-being of your friends, you could have been just like me.  Think about that."

With a toss of her long hair, Sophia turned and strode to the end of the bridge.  Sydney fought desperately to break free of the handcuffs but she could not free herself.  When Sophia reached the road, she held up a detonator so that Sydney could see it.  As if in slow motion she pressed down on the detonator.  Sydney screamed when she felt the explosion behind her.  A giant wall of water splashed up with a roar as great chunks of the bridge fell into the river, slapping the water with loud bangs like gunshots.  She ducked her head and squashed herself against the side of the bridge.  When she looked up again Sophia was gone.  Craning her neck to look around she saw that the bridge was destroyed in the middle; only a small piece at each end remained intact and attacked to the side of the road.  Sydney was on the very edge of one of these pieces.  She whipped her head back around, frightened to look down into the dark water below her.  As she did so, the remains of the great bridge began to crumble and fall away.  She gripped onto the railing that she was handcuffed to for dear life until that too began to slip.  Desperately, she tugged on the handcuffs, the metal cutting into her wrist and leaving deep cuts as she tried to escape.  Suddenly, the railings gave way and the force of her pulling sent her tumbling backwards.  The bar she was handcuffed to slipped through the metal circle as it fell to the depths of the river and Sydney managed to grab the edge of the bridge as she went over with it.

Stabs of pain shot through her like a knife; the pressure put on her injured wrist as she dangled above the swirling water was enormous.  Taking a deep breath and gritting her teeth against the pain she managed to pull herself up onto the short piece of bridge that had not yet crumbled into nothingness.  She dragged herself completely over the edge and stumbled to the road.  Once there she collapsed against a lamppost, sobbing and cradling her wrist against her body.

*          *          *

At home that night Sydney stood in front of the long mirror in her bedroom.  A warm and bubbly bath had revived her somewhat, but it had done little to lift her spirits.  She was tired and miserable and her bandaged wrist ached with a dull permanence, a constant reminder of her failed mission and near-death.  She was too tired to glare at her reflection, even though Sophia's words ricocheted around her mind.  "You could have been just like me."  Was it true?  Sydney screamed silently that it wasn't.  That she was nothing like Sophia.  But they were in the same game; they were both agents for an organization that killed mercilessly for money and power.  She shot her reflection a resentful look, hating herself for what she was and what she did.  Glassy tears slid silently down her cheeks when she saw the sympathetic look her reflection gave her in return.  It was crazy to think that her reflection was more than just that, Sydney knew, but she couldn't help reading compassion in the other woman's carbon copy of her own bitter stare.  With a tiny sigh she turned from the mirror and though she did not see it, her reflection lingered a fraction of a second, an almost undetectable moment, before mirroring her movement.


End file.
